Jack's Confession: A Rock and a Hard Place
by SarahCat1717
Summary: Takes place just prior to Jack's return to the Hub after the Year that Never Was. This is my imagining of an extended version of the conversation that took place on the Plass between the Doctor, Martha, and Jack at the end of "The Last of the Time Lords". Jack talks about his team, and especially his feelings for two of them. One-shot.


Scenario: Takes place just prior to Jack's return to the Hub after the Year that Never Was. This is my imagining of an extended version of the conversation that took place on the Plass between the Doctor, Martha, and Jack at the end of "The Last of the Time Lords". In the original version, after being invited to travel with the Doctor for a while again, Jack replies something along the lines of "I kept thinking about that team of mine" and the responsibility he has to Torchwood as being his reason to stay in Cardiff.

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"Got a whole team, huh? Anybody interesting?" Asked the Doctor. He was inwardly tickled that Jack seemed to pick up his habit of surrounding himself with good people. If there was anyone left who had an inkling of what it was like to be the Doctor...the kind of loneliness that is the unavoidable bi-product of longevity and responsibility, then it might be Jack Harkness.

"Yeah! They all are, in their own way. But don't get any ideas about poaching them from me to take on a 3 hour tour of the galaxies. Those little jaunts never quite go as planned with you."

"Huh! Tell me about it!" Martha teased, but the glint in her eye held nothing but fondness for those memories. "So, what are they like Jack?"

"Well, Tosh has been with me the longest. She's absolutely brilliant. One of the greatest minds of our time probably. Man, would she love to get a peak in the TARDIS. She would be in heaven. Hell, she may even be able to get it to stop making that noise. You know, that one that makes it sound like you left the brakes on?"

Martha snorted in a decidedly unladylike manner, but tried to put her serious listening face back on promptly when the Doctor threw her a look.

"Then there's Owen, our doctor. Nerves of steel on that guy. Not even afraid to tell the boss to shove it. But every time he cracks open a new alien on the autopsy table, you would think he's a kid on Christmas morning."

"Just this past year or so I took on two new team members. Ianto came in under some, ugh, unique circumstances, but eventually proved himself over and over again. Keeps the whole place running really. And he makes the most amazing coffee. And he's the only one that the pterodactyl will let anywhere near her, oh and did I mention he looks _amazing_ in a suit?"

Talking over one another simultaneously was the Doctor exclaiming "You've got a pterodactyl? No way!? I wonder if I have room for a dinosaur..." And Martha adding wistfully "There is something about a man in a suit..."

"Hey! Down kids! He's spoken for! I mean, you know, professionally." Jack says, squinting as he averts his eyes and studies the water tower.

Jack is quiet for a moment. Martha raises an eyebrow to the Doctor, who smirks back in return.

Jack continues "And last but not least is Gwen Cooper. Ex-cop. Good instincts. Great heart. She arrived just when we needed her, right when we needed a little more heart."

The Doctor studies his friend's profile. Jack is smiling softly, still staring at the water tower monument but with unseeing eyes. Captain Jack Harkness doesn't look uncertain or timid very often, but it was all written on his face at that moment.

"So Jack, which one is it?" the Doctor ventured.

"Huh?" Jack replies, knowing he's been caught.

"For someone who was so eager to get back to his team, which one of them has you nervous about walking through that door again? Which one is more than just a brilliant colleague?"

"Well I'd like to think they are all more than just my colleagues. They're my family if I am being really truthful. I mean, most families occasionally shoot one another right?"

"Sounds like Christmas at my house" added Martha with an eye roll.

"But..." teased the Doctor.

"But," admitted Jack, "it's complicated. It's like stuck between a pretty Welsh rock and a handsome Welsh hard place kind of complicated." Jack sheepishly flashed that winning smile and stuck his hands in the deep pockets of his greatcoat like a kid who just got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"Jack!" cried Martha, playfully smacking his arm. "You scoundrel! Details! You cant leave me hanging after a teaser like that!"

"I really shouldn't" he replied but with a wink and a grin that said he could be easily persuaded.

"But you will!" Martha Jones had a winning smile of her own and she knew how to use it. One does not get Shakespeare to write sonnets in one's honor for nothing you know.

Jack leaned on the railing and the Doctor and Miss Jones followed suit, tucking in to hear the tale like a couple of kids at story time.

"So there's Gwen. She's got these big brown eyes and the funniest smile. She lights up a room. She looks at me like I am a bona fide hero, and I can see it plain as day that she loves me. But I know I'm not a hero. I'm just a guy who keeps putting one foot in front of the other and tries to do the right thing. I have had to make some terrible choices along the way in this line of work, and I'll have to do it again no doubt."

Jack sighs heavily, takes a moment before continuing.

"So someday I am going to have to make one of those tough decisions again and she is going to see that I am not the knight in shining armor she thinks I am. And I'll watch her fall out of love with me. And besides that she is also genuinely in love with a completely 'normal' guy who she's been with for years. She deserves something wonderfully normal. Fairy tales never work out. But every once and a while I still catch myself thinking 'what if?' you know?"

"Yeah." replies Martha quietly. She is pointedly not making eye contact with with Doctor. "We all have our 'what if's' at some time or another." She and Jack exchange quick knowing small smiles.

Jack launches back into his tale.

"There there is Ianto Jones. He's got a voice like a cello, eyes like the sea, and did I mention he looks good in a suit? Yeah? Well let me tell you, it's worth mentioning twice."

Jack gets that look, that look that Jack gets when he is remembering things that he knows the Doctor likes to chastise him about sharing.

"Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah. So to make a very long and complicated story a bit shorter and less complicated: At first he kind of hated me and everything I stood for, he lied to me, I held a gun to his head, and then for some reason he...stayed. Ianto probably knows more about me than anyone else on the planet. He's our archivist and although those dusty paper files don't hold all the details he's bothered to track down more of them than anyone else has. And _still_ he stays. And still he takes me home at night. Ianto Jones knows I am not a hero. But when he looks at me...so help me I feel like I want to be one. Not to the whole world, but maybe just to him. Someday..."

The Captain's voice falters a little. One deep breath. Another. He clears his throat and continues.

"Someday Gwen will stop loving me and it will hurt. Someday Ianto maybe will love me, and then I will really be done for. Because, you see, I'll love him back. And that will hurt because...well you know all about that part, don't you Doctor."

"Yeah. All good things and endings and such."

"Yeah"

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Author's note: Sorry about the abrupt ending. From there I guess it just transitions into Jack's regular goodbye and the whole "Face of Boe" bombshell. I am primarily a Torchwood fan and Jack's take on his love triangle has been nagging me to be written for some time now. When I watched this Dr. Who episode recently I saw how it could possibly fit in. Hope you liked it. I do not have a beta and I am admittedly TERRIBLE at navigating punctuation around quotes, so please don't be too mad. I won't ask for reviews but just so you know, they do totally make my day. Thanks again!


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